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Friday, June 12, 2015

I love library book sales! My county's library system has a massive sale a couple times a year at the large main branch, and I always try to get there for at least a quick glance over the tables. And I usually find some treasure hidden there.

For instance, the annual summer sale just happened to be held this week, when I'm off between jobs. Low and behold, as I stopped by and perused, my eye fell upon the beauty pictured above: a collection of Howard tales, a book club edition from 1977.

Cover artist is Ken Kelly, of course. For a long time I mistook his work for that of Frazetta. As it turns out, that was for good reason: Kelly is the nephew of Frazetta's wife! So Kelly had access to study Frazetta's work pretty directly.

The book also has some interior art from Conan's Weird Tales days:

THAT'S RIGHT, you didn't read that wrong: this bad boy was edited by none other than Karl Edward Wagner!

And don't let the title fool you, there's more inside than Howard's great "Red Nails":

And check out the sweet map of Hyboria:

Just thought I'd share! Have you ever had a sweet score from an old book sale?